


Laughter Lines

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jack Dalton (MacGyver TV 2016) Whump, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22325899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: "I'll see you in the future when we're older, and we are full of stories to be told."Mac and Jack finally get a chance to catch up on what happened while Jack was away.
Relationships: Jack Dalton & Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016), Jack Dalton/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Comments: 74
Kudos: 50





	1. Prologue: We Didn't Start the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to [Stone Bridges](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20885240/chapters/49644098)

It starts with a few sparks bouncing and evaporating from the striking of flint against wood. It takes a few attempts, but soon the sparks don’t fade, instead landing on the wood. Akin to the formation of a puddle, the droplets of spark merge into a burning black spread across the wood, pores radiating an orange glow, flames spewing out like lava floating in a lava lamp.

Jack’s dry lips part to suck the lip of beer bottle, not quite cold enough for his tastes, but beer is beer, and fire is fire. 

And home is home, as Mac’s voice floats in one ear and out the other. 

“Really? No fire puns?” Mac scoffs. 

“Hmm?” Jack looks up, but there’s nothing and nobody in front of him. His neck is stiff, threatens to crack if he pivots, so instead his ears perk up to detect his partner’s location.

“You always make some sort of reference when the fire starts,” behind him, Mac clears his throat and imitates Jack imitating Billy Joel— _“‘We didn’t start the fire...’”_

Mac continues as Jack remains silent, his eyes transfixed on the growing flames, his mouth twitching with each crackle of the wood.

_“No we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it…”_

Jack chuckles under his breath, the alcohol burns in the back of his throat, its taste lingering on his tongue. 

“I’m thinking of a different song right now, to be quite honest with you, buddy,” Jack drawls, takes another sip of the beer. 

“What song?” 

“You ever wonder who _did_ start the fire?” Jack deflects. 

“Well, I mean, he does go in chronological order, so that would be…” Mac pauses, and Jack can envision his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “Harry Truman.” 

“Yeah, but who says it started with him? Who’s to say the fire even started in his lifetime, maybe it was always there, just...boiling his soul before he was even born. Hell, we don’t know how _this_ fire got started, the one between us.”

“How romantic,” Mac quips. “And here I was thinking _I_ was the philosophical one.” 

“What, I can’t have deep thoughts?”

“No, just thought you weren’t capable of analyzing anything to the same depth at which you’ve dissected ‘Die Hard.’”

“Hey, man, I’m just sayin’ every detail in that movie was there for a purpose, the way they utilize the Dutch Angle to clue us in to something not being right between the Gruber and McClane—”

“No, just that…” Mac laughs, cutting Jack off. “You know, I’ve, uh, missed this. The banter. _Our_ banter.” 

“Oh.” 

Jack pauses, nods and bows his head, the lines on his face crinkle with a sad smile. 

“I’ve missed it, too,” he admits in a low voice, almost even a whisper. “My merry band of operatives weren’t all that chatty on the mission. Didn’t even get to know them over beers until we caught the sonuvabitch.”

“You never told me...how did you take down Kovacs?”

The flames had now spread to the circumference of the pit, the stacked pile of wood had since collapsed. The outer layers of the wood dissolve into ash, but one piece, one stubborn piece remains standing, unwavering in the vortex of fire that burned it to its core. 

Echoes of screams billow with the rising smoke, each crackle pops in sore joints, the scent of burning wood—no, not just wood, burning flesh—tease at his nostrils.

His own screams.

His own flesh.

“It’s...a long story,” Jack sighs. He has to resist the urge to itch at the scabs of burnt skin hidden beneath his Metallica shirt, his hands are tied, anyway.

Figuratively, at least, glued to the beer bottle he brings to his lips once more.

“C’mon,” he can feel Mac bump up against his shoulder, Jack can just barely see the blonde hair in his periphery as Mac coaxes him, “We’ve got nothing but time, and each other.” 

“All we need, isn’t it?” Jack smiles, but the smile fades as the standing piece of wood is chipped away, molded into a man with his hands raised above his head, the screams get louder, and Jack gulps, the burning man becomes clearer, larger, and suddenly he’s not at the fire pit resting on the patio in Mac’s house—

He’s in an undisclosed location, a prison, staring at a reflection of himself, the taste of rust overcoming the taste of the beer as his eyes fixate on the nail staked through both of his hands, pinning him to the pillar of wood that splinters into his bare back. 

_“It was always burning since the world’s been turning,”_ Jack begins to hum under his breath. _“We didn’t start the fire…”_

“Jack?” Mac’s voice is distant, wobbly, like his legs, something is tickling at his naked feet that sway in the mirror in front of him. Jack shuts his eyes, it’s a flashback, he’s just in a flashback, and once he opens them again, he’ll return to the back porch, and move onto the next beer, the next line in the song...

_“But when we are gone, will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on…”_


	2. Light My Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack reflects as he and his team find themselves closer to Kovacs, and Mac discusses meeting Desi.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song of the chapter, "Light My Fire" by the Doors

People drift. That was just a fact of life. Jack has connected with so many people in his life that he’s gotten to know so closely to the point where he could list their birthday, home address and favorite bubblegum flavor. To the point where he’d show up at their house even for a kid’s birthday party, just to kick back and have a beer and catch up. The point where he’d drop everything he was doing to answer their call on the first ring. 

To the point where one day, all of that wouldn’t matter, and he’d let them go to voice mail. 

He reached that point with his Delta squad, scattered phone calls here and there under the guise of checking in, longing for the days of old, the days of action--Jack had enough action in his life as it was, didn’t want to lead them on with details, he had even tried to lie to them at first, let them fall into the same tile salesman charade, or the think tank charade, all so they would be spared the worry that one day they’d call Jack’s phone, and somebody else entirely would pick up to tell them the bad news. 

It was stupid, of course, thinking that they wouldn’t want to know what’s going on with one of their closest friends. No, not even friends, they were  _ brothers,  _ but even brothers go through a rough patch. Spend time away from each other. 

Don’t speak.

For years.

And years. 

And now?

He was reaching that point with Mac. 

Not one phone call since he got on that jet. Not one made, not one answered. 

Matty called once, to give him some intel she heard from a “reliable source,” though Jack really knew she was checking in on him. Bozer called, to get advice on Leanna, because he says Jack knows women better than anyone, though Jack really knew he was also checking in on him. He had answered multiple calls from Riley—with Riley, they made it clear to each other that they were checking in on each other, no charades needed. The last one was a video Skype call with his little girl that made him shut himself in the bathroom for the remainder of the night, to hide the redness in his eyes. It wasn’t because anything bad had happened, she seemed to be quite happy, really, but seeing her face and not just hearing her voice had made him realize just how much he missed everyone. 

And only served to remind him that he hadn’t heard from Mac. 

But it was Desi he had talked to the most, and the only person he had ever actually initiated contact with. 

He both wanted to know, and didn’t want to know how the team was doing while he worked on his own mission with a different team, one that was cohesive, sure, but just  _ wasn’t the same.  _

And he knew Desi wasn’t the most...approachable. Not at first, at least. He could have told the Phoenix gang from the get-go that she wouldn’t sit with them by the fire, sipping beers and playing games. She was a tough cookie to crack, but damn good at her job. He didn’t necessarily want to leave her as a replacement for him, anyway, just an additional recruit. There was still a void that needed to be filled after Cage, for that matter, a void that had been there ever since Nikki. 

Soon he would come back, and they would be one big happy family again.

He kept telling himself all of this to lessen the hurt over the fact that  _ he  _ hadn’t called. 

“So, how’s the mission going?” 

The usual phrase that capped off their weekly updates. It had become an unspoken sign for both of them, at this point, that Jack was not so eager to talk about the lack of progress they made, how he felt like a rat trapped in a maze, each whiff of cheese he got just leading him to another dead end. 

“Great. Super. Closing in on the sonuvabitch any minute now. Then I can come home and we can dominate at fireside charades.”

“Charades? They play  _ charades?” _

“Hey, don’t knock it, it’s a fun game, Des. You’d do great at it.” 

Desi had to laugh at that, and Jack had to smile. 

“Maybe once I had a few beers, Dalton. And you’re deflecting.” 

“I toldja, mission’s going great.”

“You always say things are ‘great’ when they are absolutely not.”

A beat, as static hummed in Jack’s speaker.

“I’ll talk to you next week...Keep them safe.”

“Keep  _ yourself  _ safe, Jack. And hey, not that it’s any of my business...but you should give Mac a call. The kid misses you.”

_ You’re damn right it’s none of your business. _

Jack let out a sharp exhale as he closed out of the call. He bit his lower lip, his fingers drummed out Mac’s number on a phantom keypad on the desk he was sitting at. 

He was going to, truly. He was going to call Angus Macgyver and tell him all the things he should have the day they said their “goodbyes” in Jack’s apartment. 

But not on this night. 

This night, when, shortly after getting off the phone with Desi, right before Jack and his team were going to call it a night and get some shut eye, a young, eager-eyed, bushy tailed operative on his task force burst into the room with urgent news. 

And coordinates. 

Coordinates that led them right into Kovac’s hands.

It wasn’t the kid’s fault, of course. Never is. In a way, he reminded Jack  _ so much  _ of Mac when they first met, which is perhaps why he made him stay back at base.

“I was the one who  _ gave  _ you this intel—”

“Which puts a target on your back, a price on your head, hell, they’re probably printing out a million copies of your ‘wanted’ poster as we speak here, Chip.”

“I’m not just gonna sit here like some sort of abandoned puppy while  _ y’all _ — _ ”  _ Chip had made sure to mock Jack’s accent, “—go out there and become heroes. Nuh-uh. I’m coming with.”

“Listen, you little shit. You have  _ no idea  _ what we’re dealing with here. Nada. Zero. Zlich. But  _ I do.  _ I put a bullet in this man and he didn’t stay down--”

“Which is why you need more guns, more bullets, more manpower--”

At this point, Jack had raised his voice. Didn’t give a damn whether the rest of the team was listening or not. 

“You are staying behind and that’s  _ final.  _ I am your superior officer, and I am not having this discussion—”  _ Again,  _ Jack thought, having felt an odd sensation of deja vu, “—with you,  _ do-I-make-myself-clear, boy?” _

The young man gulped and nodded, a tight frown on his face, but one that told him he took Jack seriously enough to trust his words. 

He almost wishes the kid had put up a fight. Maybe one extra man could have helped after all.

The coordinates brought them to an abandoned shopping mall, they attempted an ambush with a small crew, banking on the element of surprise, but they were made almost as soon as they set foot on the property. 

Jack didn’t have time to be angry at the potential that Chip had betrayed them, nor the time to contemplate that perhaps this kid was fooled, too. He didn’t have time to be angry over the fact that they had finally found the exit to the rat maze, only to step into a glue trap instead of a victory, one that left them vulnerable and easy targets. He didn’t have time, none of them had time to call for help.

He didn’t even have time to mourn over his fallen comrades, who gave their lives in a last-ditch, futile effort to shoot Kovacs down.

They had run out of bullets.

And Jack ran out of options. 

And nearly ran out of breath, too, as Kovacs stood on his throat with one foot and began to undress his guns and knives on his tac vest with the other, not particularly concerned about any bruising from his assault on Jack’s body.

“Why, my friend, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the dead man spoke as he relished the sputtering coming out of Jack’s lips on a face that was transforming from red to blue. “Now, then, Jack Dalton. Let’s begin.”

* * *

“The kid’s name was technically Dale, but I called him ‘Chip’ just to screw around with him, you know? Just like—”

“Chip n’ Dale?” Mac completes the thought and they both laugh into their chests. “Man, you always pick on the little guy.”

“Hey, it’s just too easy,  _ Carl’s Junior.”  _

“Ooh, take me back, Jack,” Mac winces in a mock scoff. The crinkles on Jack’s face pronounce themselves from a reminiscing smile.

“So, what, did you pull a McClane, have some guns taped to your back? Shoot Kovacs once and for all?” 

A dark chuckle shook his body, which suddenly feels sore, tight. As if something is constricting him, but he doesn’t try to flex out of it, just remains rigid, focuses on the fire in front of him. He pretends that the crackling and popping is of the burning wood and not of his joints.

Maybe he is getting too old for this shit after all. 

_ “Quid pro quo, Clarice,” _ he hums in a posh imitation of Anthony Hopkins. Within seconds he returns to his normal voice, “I tell you somethin’, you tell me somethin’.”

“I know what quid pro quo is, Jack.”

“So go on, then! Dish, bro. Desi told me that, uh, her welcome was not all that warm?”

“Yeah, well, she sorta...broke into my house.”

“That’s not exactly a difficult feat, man, I’ve been telling you for years that you need to lock them doors.”

“She ‘got me’ right as I got out of the shower, Jack. Not the best first impression.”

Jack laughs. 

“And ate my chips!” Mac added in jest, noted by his own laughs.

“Oh, a travesty!”

“Wasn’t just me, she got Ri, Boze and Leanna, too.”

“Please tell me...did she get Matty?”

“‘Course not...but you knew that already, didn’t you?” Mac’s laughter fades out in a sudden...flippancy in his tone.

“What d’you mean?”

“She had more contact with you than the rest of us, it seems.” 

“Yeah, checked in with her a few times, just to see how the transition was going. N-not that I was worried, that she wouldn’t fit in with y’all or anything, just, uh. Just wanted to make sure I didn’t...leave y’all...hanging.” 

“If that’s true...then why didn’t you call  _ me?” _


	3. Heat of the Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack reflects on the early moments of his capture, while Mac and Jack discuss phonecalls, or rather, the lack thereof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song of the chapter, "Heat of the Moment" by Asia.

He was on the verge of passing out as Kovacs finally stepped off of his neck, barking orders in a language that Jack was too distracted to translate. Every blink seemed to plunge him into darkness longer than the last, the dark, noiseless void was more appealing to him than the harsh, shouted words and teetering blur of the world that was rapidly shrinking in on him.

His arms were twisted and raised above his head, his body hastily dragged out of the mall’s courtyard and into a vacant, dilapidated store. His captors seemed to struggle with pulling his dead weight, as they grunted and stopped to jerk his limbs into a stretch that nearly dislocated both of his shoulders.

After an indeterminate amount of time, his body was dropped on the floor next to a circular wooden pillar, carelessly and unceremoniously like a rag doll. They didn’t care that his arm dropped and he wrapped it around the pillar and was about to use his other arm to assist himself off the ground, a few swift kicks to his stomach and one to his forehead assured that he wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, and more foreign words snared in his ear drums. 

But in his respite he was able to pick out one icy demand from the devil himself that somehow drew out his heart strings to tips of his shaking fingers, widened his eyes, clenched the breath in his throat.

_ “Fetch my tools.” _

Jack’s head lolled to watch his assailants leave the area, but something his face bounced in the other direction after impacting against a brass knuckled fist. 

The first thing that caught his eye was a mirror that showed the rising lump on his forehead from the kick, the scraggles of his unkempt beard glistened a crimson red from the waterfall of blood pouring from his nose. 

The second thing that caught his eye was the owner of the fist, Kovacs, who crouched down next to Jack, pinned his arm to the ground with his knee. He pinched Jack’s cheeks together with one hand, and used the other to pat the pockets of Jack’s pants. His fingers located Jack’s phone, and he shoved it in front of the man’s face to unlock it.

“Fassial ‘echo-nition ain’t gonna ‘ork like dis,” Jack struggled to taunt through his puckered lips

“You Americans and your poor sense of security,” Kovacs tutted as he gained access to Jack’s phone. “Ah, it seems you have a picture of me, Dalton.”

“Got a two by four in my wallet, too,” Jack sneered. His cheeks were released, his head shoved away, though his vision lagged behind him. 

“I have a picture too,” Kovacs brought up his own phone, held it in front of Jack and waited a few moments to watch as Jack’s face fell with his heart. 

It was not just a picture of Jack. 

It was a picture of Jack with  _ Mac.  _

“Pretty little friend you got there.”

“Not my friend,” Jack quickly spat. “Just some kid I met on a mission.”

“Just ‘some kid,’ huh? What organization does he work for?” 

“Do you keep a scrapbook of all of my missions or something,  _ Tiberius?  _ I’ve met so many people, worked with so many government agencies, hard to keep them all straight in my head, especially when you’re over here knocking it around.”

“Perhaps you need some clarity, then…”

Kovacs stood up, Jack’s fingers fumbled to clench his ankle, to gain some leverage as he rolled over through the soreness and get up off of the ground. Kovacs wouldn’t let him, he simply shook him off and stomped on Jack’s hand. As Jack squeezed his eyes tight, praying that he would wake up on the ground next to his cot at base, he heard Kovacs whistle sharply, a beckoning call, but not to Jack.

His uncomfortably scrunched face tightened to its limit as he seethed through his teeth, his arms had been hooked into a hold between the two men that had carried him into the room, and he was lifted up onto his feet.

He heard the sound of velcro unlatching, and his chest felt lighter as he realized his empty tac vest was now removed from his body. The sound of it sliding across the floor was amplified in his ears, akin to nails on a chalkboard. He threw his head back, and it fell onto the wooden column that was attached to him like another limb. 

Something cold, sharp, sliced through one sleeve of his shirt, and then the other. The tip of the blade just barely scraped his skin, he was just about to open his eyes when he made the decision to keep them shut, ashamed of the icy exposure as the fabric peeled away from his torso. His pants were left untouched, though as Kovacs began to talk again, he toyed with the elastic band of his vacant thigh holster. 

“Tell me, Dalton...was he CIA, like you?”

He knew Kovacs would gather intel on Jack, or rather, the small amount that was available. There was no way he could get access to the files of his time at the Phoenix. Riley had fortified their defenses, being the best hacker Jack’s ever heard of, she would most certainly know if there was an attempt…

Unless they have a mole.

But they went through that already. They couldn’t have another one.

Especially when he wasn’t there to help them. 

“Maybe...former military?”

No, there was nothing in that picture to indicate that Mac was former military, with the exception of his posture, perhaps? But for all Kovacs knew, the kid just had really good posture, stood up straight, his shoulders back, chest puffed, naturally at attention at all times. He was a very observant man, after all. 

And so was Jack, who felt even colder than before after a void covered over the sensation of Kovac’s body heat. His face relaxed, his tongue poking out and washing over the blood on his lips as his eyes fluttered open to find that his captor had moved to a table that appeared to his left. In the reflection of the mirror, he saw that as Kovacs was unpacking a black bag, laying out various “tools” in front of him that Jack knew were torture devices, his eyes were studying Jack’s reflection, shirtless and restrained. 

“DXS?”

Jack felt his fists clenched so tightly that his fingernails left an impression so deep he could swear he may have even punctured his palms. The muscles in his arms flexed, the veins in his reflection’s neck were taut and in that moment, he could feel every ounce of blood rushing in his body. The adrenaline was helping him overcome his dizziness, he was getting the clarity that Kovacs had offered after all, from three little letters that told him he was about to enter a new level of hell.

“Oh, wait, no, no, no...they disbanded a few years back," Kovacs tapped the his lips with the tip of his finger, in mock-thought. "Supposedly. But you and I both know the truth, don’t we, Jack Dalton?”

Kovacs lifted a hand, his fingers gesturing upward, and his two pawns took it as a signal to twist Jack’s arms above his head, his left hand placed atop his right, palms facing the mirror. Jack didn’t let his reaction show, tight lips and expressionless eyes. He knew what was about to happen, because Kovacs had made a show of himself as he held up a large nail in front of the mirror, admiring its composition, its length as his eyes measured it before he measured Jack, measured his own steel composition, the length of his body that he tried to expand as he shifted his body in effort to stand tall in the face of this threat, his chest puffed, his shoulders drawn back. 

Good posture is key, after all. Sloppiness and slumping are not acceptable. 

But even Jack, tough as the nail that was so small, so insignificant that it couldn’t possibly as much pain as the normal torture methods, had to gulp when Kovacs took out a small canister with a nozzle attached, and as his hand squeezed the trigger, a small, blue flame appeared, wafting over the previously gray nail that morphed into a bright orange. 

Kovacs lips curled into a small smile, his nostril wide as both he and Jack smelled the fear in the droplets of sweat emanating from the pores of Jack’s boiling skin. He set down the blowtorch and picked up a hammer before turning away from the table and walking towards Jack, calm, collected, as if this was something he did everyday.

Then again, he was an actual terrorist, and as far as job performance goes, he was exceeding expectations.

He held the nail in front of Jack’s face vertically, allowing Jack to study the slowly fading heat, though it wasn’t cooling quick enough, as he began to tip it towards Jack’s eyes. Jack flinched away, a mistake, showing a sign that yes, he was afraid, because he truly had no idea what Kovacs intended to do with the nail, or with him.

If he wanted Jack dead, he would most certainly be dead by now, wouldn’t he?

Just when Jack had begun to dread that the twisted man was about to drive the nail through his eye, the nail was lifted past his eyes, which nearly rolled backwards as he followed its ascent past his head. His heart pounded in his ears as the hammer was pounded above his head. Jack foolishly thought the nail was being hammered into space between his head and hands, unable to confirm his suspicion as his vision was flooded by Kovacs’ face, until he felt a sudden prick on his palm that blossomed a wave of heat across his skin. The tip of the nail was removed, and for a fleeting moment, Jack felt relief…

Until the heated tip of the nail didn’t just poke at his skin, but  _ impaled  _ not just one, but both of his hands, and he was pinned to the wooden column. 

His blood curdling screams echoed throughout the empty shopping mall, but the pain of the nail driven through his hands didn't hurt nearly as much as the words that preceded it.

“A phoenix rose from the ashes of DXS. And you and Mr.  MacGyver were carried by its talons to where we are today.”

* * *

“How did we get here?”

There’s a monotonous hum that rings through Jack’s ears, like the one he hears after an explosion, dulling his senses which is not something he appreciates. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he’ll make it very vocally clear, shouting and yelling over the noise to anyone who’ll listen, calling out for someone to lift him before he sinks into the earth, collapsing under the pressure of shock waves.

But right now, he’s silent in the face of the roaring wave threatening to pull him back under. There’s a foul taste in his mouth, maybe he needs to stop drinking the beer, take a break, get some water instead. Yet his legs are cemented to the wood beneath him, his nostrils inhaling the smoke rising out of Mac’s head. 

Figuratively, of course, because Mac is not a cartoon character, his face is not red in a comically exaggerated manner, though oddly enough he thinks of the whistle of a tea kettle as the hum is interrupted by loud, harsh ringing.

“I’m not talking about  _ here  _ here, just...how did we get to the point in our relationship where  _ you’re  _ the one not calling me?” Mac shouts over the ringing. 

“I was going to! I just...got busy.”

“But not busy enough to where you were calling Desi. Or Matty, or Bozer, or Riley. They all told me that you’ve talked to them.”

“They called  _ me.  _ And I answered.” 

“So, what, you weren’t going to talk to me unless I called you first? What are we, in high school?”

“Big words coming from the guy who flew off to another country without a word to anybody.” 

“Really, you’re still upset about that?” Mac groans.

“Mac, I shouldn’t have had to check satellite feeds to make sure you’re okay! Now, I know I may be a helicopter parent but you gotta look at the sky every now and again, you hear?” 

Mac laughs coldly. 

“You know, kind of funny...My  _ real  _ dad pulled my ass out of Nigeria just to pick  _ you  _ up. Thought it would get me back to the Phoenix, having my partner back by my side. And it did...and then...you left. And I stayed.”

“ _ Not by choice,”  _ Jack reminds him sternly. “And I thought you came back cause of Murdoc?” 

“Partially. But...not entirely. I couldn’t work for somebody I didn’t trust...but I figured that I could work with someone I did...trust.”

_ “ Did? _ You saying you don’t trust me anymore?” Jack couldn't hide the hurt in his words if he tried. 

“I don’t know, man, there seems to be something you aren’t telling me,” Mac baits him.

“Likewise, hoss,” Jack chuckles humorlessly, before deflecting to change the subject. “Speaking of your pops, what’s going on with him, you two work it out? Haven’t seen him in the office lately.”

“Not...Kind of...It’s complicated.”

“He leave you again?” 

“I asked him to,” Mac replies shortly, and the conversation momentarily ends there, recognized to Jack by the stiffness of Mac’s body, the quiet huffs of breath that he’s trying to keep under control. His father is a sore subject, always has been, but bringing it up again seemed to rub vinegar on the wound. 

Jack stares into the fire, feels the glue keeping his feet melt away and his feet tingle from waking numbness. He’s about to get up, maybe take a leak, let Mac grease up the wheels in his brain, sort out the mess of words that are dancing on the tip of his tongue. Their problems are usually sorted out during a mission, in neutral territory. For once in his life, he feels like he’s invading the privacy of Mac’s home, made even more uncomfortable by the fact that for the first time since Jack moved to L.A, this was entirely  _ Mac’s  _ house. Bozer has moved out, Riley has her own life, her own relationships outside of work to focus on, his father’s seemingly MIA again, and here’s Jack Dalton, foolishly thinking things would go back to normal the minute he came back. 

Perhaps Jack should just leave altogether, and they can diffuse the tension in the morning. 

He motions to get up, but Mac’s words keep him down. 

“I did call you. Once. Sounds to me like you never got the message.”

“When?”

“After...after I sent Dad away. After Charlie…”

He left the sentence hang in the air, the unspoken word felt between them.

“Desi told me. Without...really telling me.”

“He sacrificed himself, Jack. For me, and it was stupid, and selfish, and it should...shouldn’t have been... _ him.” _

Jack has his own selfish thought, that if anybody, it should have been  _ him  _ that would sacrifice himself, to keep Mac safe. Nobody else needs that albatross. 

“So...how did...Mac-daddy have anything to do with that? He give the order?” Jack’s words are blunt, to the point, but truthfully he’s worried about this.

“No, but he was responsible for everything that led up to that moment. And I was just...I’m sick of his manipulation, only telling me things when  _ he  _ deems necessary, and I just...couldn’t keep giving him the validation...I kind of...forgave him, at one point. For a little bit, things were great, you saw that.”

Jack nods, though knew from the start that Mac would be almost  _ too  _ forgiving to James. 

“And he told me that he has  _ cancer,  _ and just...what am I supposed to do with that? Was I supposed to just keep him around because he might not be around much longer? No matter what he did? All because he was trying to make up for lost time, act like he’s become a better father? And I guess that’s why I called you. To get your advice, because I didn’t know if it was right to just throw our progress out the window--cause we did, we were...reconnecting. And I just...I thought back to all the things you said, to our road trip we took to find him, all that time and effort just felt...wasted the minute he walked back out that door.”

Jack’s eyes flick over to the door, as if James were about to come right back out and berate Mac for his rare display of the deepest emotions he tends to hide behind a tough, disciplined exterior. He senses that perhaps, Mac is waiting for the same thing, and suddenly any desire he had to leave Mac to himself is gone.

Not that leaving was ever an option, not really. Not anymore.

“But at the same time...he didn’t really put up a fight when he left,” Mac exhales, breaking a tense three minute silence. 

“I don’t think it’s about what was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ to do in that situation, Mac. It was about how  _ you,  _ Angus Macgyver felt in that situation, and if it didn’t feel ‘right’ then...it wasn’t meant to be. Toldja before, we’re always here for you. He may be your father in blood but he doesn’t have to be your Dad. The people we choose to surround ourselves with, the ones that are there for us,  _ really,  _ listen to us, don’t just pull on our strings, expect forgiveness, bait us with tragedy in effort to get us closer to them...The ones that love us, and not just tell us, but  _ show  _ it, those are our real family.”

Jack hangs his head, looks down at his feet, the tingling has surpassed just a gentle tickle, his toes are dancing on tips of a thousand burning needles. 

It reminds him of New Orleans, and with his limited ability of movement and vision, he may as well have been trapped in another coffin.

“I should have called you. Or called you back, I really didn’t get the notification that you called me. Phone broke.”

“Shocker.” 

Jack has to laugh at Mac’s sardonic tone of delivery, he can’t see his face, but he can envision the smirk on the blonde-haired man’s lips. 

“Almost thought about doing a little Jack-gyvering myself to try and fix it up, but my hands were kind of…”

His thumb rubs over the palm of his other hand, tracing the outline of the deep circular scar that intersected with his natural palm lines.

“Did have to do a little improvising though, to get free. You’d be proud.”

“Well, I’m all ears. Break it down for me, how’d you get out of there?” 

The needles somehow found themselves shooting up through his feet, upwards toward his chest. Small bursts of pain flared in the splotches of scars scattered on his torso, maybe he should take a step back from the fire, so that the sparks wouldn’t hit him.

“Wasn’t easy. We’re talking Cairo levels of difficulty. Lots of pain. Lots of heartache, too.” 

This was his cue to go grab another beer, but somehow he didn’t need one, it was already in his hand, and then already down his throat. The alcohol seemed to burn with the memories in the back of his throat, every crackle of the burning wood echoed with Kovacs’ icy words that shook his spine.

“Heartache?” 

“Yeah. Asshole somehow managed to find my biggest weakness, and exploit it.”

“And what’s that?”

“You.”


	4. Burnin' For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lines and definitions are blurred, Jack undergoes a rough interrogation, and Mac and Jack discuss coping mechanisms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song of the chapter, “Burnin’ for You” by Blue Öyster Cult

Jack had always admired the routine nature of torture, on both sides of the coin. It was easy enough to anticipate the questions, after all, he was also quite the apt interrogator. He had the whole book memorized, as both the captive and captor. Even wrote a few lines himself.

“Who do you work for?”

_ Why, Uncle Sam, of course. _ Answer wasn’t far from the truth, after all--though everybody seemed to hate Uncle Sam judging by how swiftly his tongue would get smacked back into his mouth. He never quite understood that, but then again, he didn’t understand a lot of terrorists.

“What is the Phoenix Foundation?”

Ah, first mistake, getting into specifics. You don’t want to do that until the subject is entirely broken to the point where their inhibitions are released, unless you have a spare supply of truth serum-- _ That’s not a real thing, Jack--Yes, it is, Mac, you literally saw me drugged with it-- _ or a whole lotta alcohol; the tortured mind can still be secluded inside a well built mental fortress of the need to protect. Protect the intel, protect the mission, protect  _ the people you love. _

“What is your relationship to Angus MacGyver?”

That was the second mistake, and not just because he knew it was the lowest blow, almost cheating. Jack is very self aware, and therefore knows more than some Russian asshole with a price on his head so big that Jack could buy a rocket ship to Mars with the reward, that even  _ speaking  _ Mac’s name in the wrong way will set him off on a dangerous path of blind rage, one where he’ll shed his skin and expose the raw, vulnerable emotions he worked so hard to hide under his guise of witty humor and pop culture references. 

But it was also a mistake because quite frankly, it was a question he couldn’t answer. And all that’s gonna do is just fry his brain more than the searing pain filleting his skin like a fish. 

It went beyond just a simple co-worker interaction, he knew that much. Friendship even seemed too...casual to describe them. The foundation of their friendship was built on a grueling sixty four days spent hating each other, damn near knocking the brains out of each other’s skulls in their first meeting, in fact. Somehow that turned into a burnt out Overwatch saving the life of the slowest EOD bomb tech by shooting four targets with two bullets, and the EOD bomb tech disarming an impossible bomb under the world’s tightest time crunch. 

Somehow that made them more than “just friends.” 

Perhaps it was because he never had a brother, at this rate, certainly wouldn’t have a son of his own, but he found himself caring for this scrawny kid with the hamburger name more than anyone he’s ever loved before--and that was just it. It was a  _ love,  _ and not an unrequited one, either. Not a love where his blemishes in his personality would be exposed and he’d be abandoned as he had so many times before. He didn’t have to put a heavy amount of “work” into this relationship, and even if he did, it came as easy to him as lifting a feather. There were no guessing games involved, the words didn’t even need to be spoken though when they were, it would give him the ultimate relief, the reassurances in those doubting moments. He had never quite been able to anticipate what another human being needed as much as he knows that for himself. 

He had never  _ needed  _ anybody in the way that he  _ needed  _ Mac. And vice versa, he was never  _ needed  _ by anybody, sometimes he felt scarcely wanted, in fact. 

So it was a co-dependency. A partnership. 

But even then, it can’t be that, partnerships dissolve.

Theirs didn’t.

Did it? 

“Ah, ah, ah, where are you going, Mr. Dalton?” Jack’s eyes were on their way up into the back of his head when they were drawn back down with the drawstrings of a blow torch that kissed his chest, dangerously exposed to the most vulnerable mount of raised flesh that would most certainly cause him pain so tremendous that Kovacs would have to escalate matters to keep his subject “awake.”

“We have so much more to discuss, especially as you’ve neglected to tell me about your little blonde friend.” 

“He ain’t...my friend, man, I toldja…” Jack’s voice graveled through his heaving. He had to shift his weight, lean onto the half of his body that wasn’t floundering from the burning blotch on his skin. 

“You can’t protect him forever, after all, you’re not even by his side now. Must be terrible for you, knowing that he’s out there somewhere,  _ without you  _ to keep him safe.”

_ Not really, not when I know that at least your clinically cold ass ain’t anywhere close to finding him. _

“Really, I’m telling the truth,” Jack shook his head, squeezing his eyes tight before one of the goons pry his eyes open to watch Kovacs apply the blow torch to another nail. He roasted it for a full minute and a half before he reached for his hammer. 

“Pity. Because you could really use a friend right now, Mr. Dalton,” Kovacs tipped the head of the tool, tapping Jack’s flaring nose as he tightened his lips, puffed his chest to show that  _ it’s not gonna be that easy-- _

The first nail was staked dangerously close to Jack’s heart. 

For a moment, his mind played a nasty trick, made him believe that the nail was a firestarter, causing his whole body to erupt into the sensation of flames. It was a sensation he was no stranger to, and so strong that he wondered if he had ever left the crematorium at all. 

He tried to pull himself out of the pyre by thinking of a smaller fire, surrounded by friends. Throwing rubber ducks at Riley. Laughing with Bozer and Mac. Playing truth or dare, and after he ceases his playful waterfowl bombardment on his daughter, it was his turn. He picked truth, partially to avoid the humiliation of what a dare could entail, and partially as an offering of himself to the people he cared about the most. He owed them that much after all they’ve done for him.

He remembered that night by the fireside, and while all three of his friends had, in unison, asked him a question, it wasn’t half as difficult as the one that came out of their warbling voices as sparks sizzle on his chest--though Riley and Bozer are physically absent. It’s just Mac, asking him questions.

_ “Why did you leave us behind?” _

He’s not even given a chance to answer, his screams still bouncing off of every surface in the room while the next burning nail is prepped and hammered directly into his sternum. 

Every part of his body curled inward, his fingers, his eyebrows, his toes, his muscles, his lips, all in effort to shrink down the excruciating pain by suffocating it with his own flesh.

He had curled, hunched over in a game of charades, standing far too close to the fire on the grand stage of the porch as he worked to act out the Hunchback of Notre Dame in exaggerated fashion, much to the giggling pleasure of the ladies in the group and the frustrated groans of the men on his team. He was only slightly hurt by the fact that neither of them, especially fellow movie buff Bozer, could make the guess.

It was a failed endeavor anyway, as yet another white hot nail was decorated into his chest, under his right breast.

He remembered how heavy his Halloween costume was, the year they made Mac’s house a Wizard of Oz themed haunted adventure. Remembered how he sat by the fire, even though he was plenty warm already under the bulky material, catching his breath after playfully chasing young children around as the Tin Man. He remembered some of the paint melting off his chest because he was too close to the heat.

With another nail primed and ready to strike into him and a cold sneer, Kovacs informed Jack that it may not have been his birthday, but it might as well have been with how delightful the present Jack gave to him has been so far. 

He thought back to giving Mac the birthday present of an actual party, inspired by a recent trip to Hawaii and even catered by the great Kamekona himself. Matty’s glare as Jack handed her a present of his own had nearly sent him into the fire that tickled his tummy as much as the shrimp did. 

It wasn’t about answers, he realized as Kovacs gave him more a longer reprieve by returning back towards the table. He reached into his tool box, presumably to pull out more nails before he lifted out a small velvet pouch full of them, spilled them out onto the table. The cascading sound of the rusted metal raining down onto the table filled his heart with absolute  _ dread.  _ He didn’t, he  _ couldn’t  _ count how many nails were being prepared for his body, because if he counted them, it would never have an end. 

This torture wasn’t just to get some information out of him. It was for revenge, for the not-so-permanent damage done to Kovacs' by Jack’s own hands. He was hammering in the nails to Jack’s coffin, taking extra measures to ensure that he wouldn’t be able to escape death as easily as he did. 

It was a torture just for some psychopathic  _ fun,  _ evidenced by his vocal disappointment when Jack managed to steal a few more moments free, as Kovacs' phone started to ring.

“What is it?” he barked into the phone in a frustrated fashion. He had gone back to his native tongue in his fury to speak quicker, barking orders but also...arguing.

“You fool, you don’t understand, this is more than just a childish  _ game  _ to me,” he hissed into the speaker, in a low whisper that Jack still heard as he continued to seethe short, rapid breaths in his momentary recovery. 

He may have been able to identify Jack’s weakness, but Jack was able to identify Kovacs’, too. His pride and joy in being able to “play” with Jack would be his downfall, as it was taken away by whatever pressing matter terrorists are called away to tend to. 

He knew the tantrum would come before Kovacs knew himself.

The third mistake. Distractions. 

With a heavy sigh, he threw the phone onto the table, slammed his fists down and in the mirror, Jack watched as he wiped his face before he spun around and landed a frustrated gut punch into Jack’s stomach. 

“This isn’t over,” Kovacs wagged his finger in front of Jack, flicked his nose. Jack couldn’t help but flinch in just how  _ demeaning  _ it was.

“Yeah, don’t worry, I never thought it was,” Jack groaned before his breath hitched, and he was trapped in a hoarse, hollow inhale. Kovacs, pleased with the lasting damage that wouldn’t fade until far long after Kovacs left the room, simply straightened out his suit jacket with a smug smile on his face. He ordered one of his cronies to keep an eye on “The stupid American” before he began to make his leave...

But not before he gave Jack another nail, one that he couldn’t ignore as the everlasting fire continued to burn on Mac’s porch, unimpeded by his roars of pain and curses. 

Maybe he was too old for this. Maybe he should just let himself bleed out, as his overlapping palms continue to painstakingly slide down the nail, his skin stretched and ripped, rapidly releasing his life force. Though as he slightly draws back before his hands are torn in half entirely, the wheels turn in his head with an idea, that is so stupid and crazy it just  _ might  _ work-- 

_ “Jack.” _

Mac’s voice pulls him out of the uncertain past, into the present. Of course, he thinks, it was stupid to think that somehow he was anywhere else, but sharing the company with his  _ partner,  _ communed around a fire in a pit of the firm, but somehow comforting wood of Mac’s porch. He’s not standing, in fact, his butt cheeks feel flattened, and while he would much prefer a cushioned support as well as something for his aching back, he can’t complain. He’s been in worse places. His mouth isn’t oozing blood, the air inside is not dry but moist, the suds of beer still bubbling on his tongue that takes the edge off of him, though of course his defenses aren’t 

“How did you...cope with all of that? I mean, we’ve both been in the frying pan but from the sounds of it you were dunked right into the fire itself.” 

“You’re starting to sound a bit like me there, hoss.”

“Consider it my way of coping. Helps me to have someone there who talks like you, even if it’s myself.”

“You talk to yourself?” Jack snorts. “Now you’re really becoming me.”

“Well, I, uh...didn’t really have anybody else to talk to, for a bit. Especially after Dad, uh...left.”

He knows there’s more to the story than that, his suspicions growing that perhaps his father’s leaving him for the second time in his life somehow hit him harder than the first. 

“What...what do you mean by that? And I mean, really, not like you can call kicking James to the curb a loss, and you still have Matty, Riley, Bozer, Desi--”

“They weren’t…” Mac hesitates, Jack can picture his tongue waving over dry lips as he gulps down the choking sensation. “A-and couldn’t, anyway. They had their own lives, they’re own problems, and I...I just didn’t want to bother them…”

“Aw, Mac. You know that’s not good. You wouldn’t have  _ bothered  _ them at all, they’re your friends--hell, more than that, your  _ family,  _ your  _ real  _ family, and while Mother Matty might be a little rough around the edges even she would offer you a ear to listen to you, Ri and Boze are as good as the siblings you never had, I could only hope Desi was as good as a listener for you as she was for me--”

“They weren’t  _ enough,”  _ Mac interrupts with his earlier sentiment. He can hear the younger man pant as if he had just ran a marathon as he continues to shed light on his demons he’s seemingly kept repressed for far too long now, “and neither was I. I’m not enough. A-and I ne…”

Mac’s voice trails off, fading into silent heaving sobs that Jack can feel rub against his back and he can’t help but complete the interrupted sentence in his head.

_ I needed you.  _

Jack remains silent, unsure of what he exactly he can do to comfort his friend, other than do what he does best when he needs to get the wheels in Mac’s head turning, or in this case, change direction because Mac was steering himself into a dangerous territory of self loathing that Jack knows from personal experience, is a bitch to get out of. But at least now that these heavy words are out in the open, they can be captured and snuffed, and Jack can do his part to help.

So he starts talking.

“You wanna know how I coped? I imagined this. Sitting on the deck at your house, a few beers, under a canopy of the multitude of stars in the night sky. A small, toasty fire burnin’. Just you and me, nobody else, a-and we don’t even need to talk, we can just...enjoy our company. Reflect in the silence, overlooking the city we work so hard in secret to keep safe. I don’t know what heaven looks like, but I’m pretty damn sure it’s just...like that. In my darkest moments, I always just thought back to that feeling...it’s just pure... _ bliss,  _ man, and there’s nothing like it. I don’t even get as much comfort from watching good ol’ John McClane leaping off of Nakatomi tower--and it’s not even that it’s a  _ rush  _ like that anyway, just a...comfort. The feeling that no matter what was going on, whether I was tied to a chair or sharing my bloodstream and heart or getting poked with a cattle prod or burning in a coffin or just flat out tortured--now matter how bad the pain...I could just come back to  _ this.  _ Come back to...well, come back to  _ you.”  _

“Is that where you are right now?” Mac asks, and Jack finally turns his head to look at his friend in the eye…

But he can’t.

His head turns, but he can’t see Mac in his periphery, though he can feel the curls of his hair brush against the back of his neck. His eyes instead take in the expanding flames that waft dangerously close to his face, teasing the bristles of his beard. He lets out a soft groan as he tries once again to move, to get up, but his legs are bound to wooden legs with a taut wire around his ankles, similar to the bonds that constrict his upper arms to his chest. He looks up and the stars are gone, just a colorless void of a ceiling that is bound to start crashing down any second now, so he looks back down, to take another swig from the liquid that perhaps could just make him forget all of his worries, as alcohol always tends to do-- 

However, the beer bottle he was holding in his hand wasn’t a nourishing, dehydrating refreshment, but rather, a small grenade.

An option to end it quickly. 

He gulps as he comes to terms with the reality he was pretending didn’t exist, all for what, a few more minutes spent talking to the man he loves, when he knows fully well he’s in the exact same situation, threatened by the same fire that spreads from the four corners of the room and into the center, leaving them trapped in a vortex and forced to confront the truth, one that was becoming more and more clear with the smoke that clouded Jack’s tearful eyes.

That neither their relationship, nor their own selves are indestructible. 

Angus MacGyver. Jack Dalton. Angus MacGyver  _ and  _ Jack Dalton are not immortal. 

Their time on this earth is as fleeting as the edges of the fire that spark up and flitter away.

Dissolve.

As all partnerships do.

Even fires fade after years and years spent ablaze.

Jack finally speaks, disturbing the intermittent crackling of the vast fire pit they are trapped in and he feels as small and vulnerable as a wood chip, and his voice doesn’t hide that fact, but he tries to keep pretending, for Mac’s sake, that maybe, just  _ maybe  _ they could get out of this, tries to pepper in a little confidence to his answer of Mac’s question, but it still comes out as morose. Bleak. Defeated. 

“Yeah. It is.”

He falls back into the memory of a much better time, wishes he can stay in it forever. He feels a hand on his shoulder, and turns his head to find Mac sitting besides him, his eyes as wide and tearful and as lost as Jack’s. 

“Mind if I join you?”

Jack places a hand on Mac’s knee, and nods.

He knows it’s not real, but it’s a nice sentiment.


End file.
